The Music Video 125 Project: the whole shebang, because I surrender

[slipjig]

A while back, in a typical fit of boredom I assembled a list (not for the first time) of my choices for the 125 greatest music videos ever created, with the intention of talking about them in detail online, one at a time. Thus followed a long period of brainstorming, shuffling around a few hundred index cards, transferring data to a spreadsheet,

Comments

[ckd]

It'd be interesting to slice and dice the list by year, artist, and director. You have a whole lot of Michel Gondry (exactly 10% of your list, if we give him half credit for #73 :-) and another video and a half by Olivier. I like MG's work well enough, but that seems excessive to me.

Meanwhile, only one for Russell Mulcahy and five for Spike Jonze (he should get credit for #60 as well)? Actually, 5 seems about right for SJ to me, though I would probably add in one of his Weezer videos (either "Buddy Holly" or "Undone - The Sweater Song") and Mathew Cullen's video for their "Pork and Beans". (Even though Barenaked Ladies did it first with "Sound of Your Voice", I'd put "Pinch Me" in ahead of SoYV.)

Russell Mulcahy, OTOH...Wikipedia lists 53 for him so only one entry is rather underrepresenting his work; while "Pressure" is one of his best there is no way, NO WAY AT ALL, that "Total Eclipse of the Heart" should be left off this list. I'd also put one of his Duran Durans (probably "Wild Boys" rather than "Hungry Like The Wolf"/"Rio"/"Save a Prayer", though, and certainly not "The Reflex"), and maybe one of the Queen videos (probably "A Kind of Magic"; "Princes of the Universe" loses out because it's so much of a homage to his own movie). Supertramp's "It's Raining Again" is okay but not stellar, so I don't think it'd make my list.

"Sugar Water" does Semisonic's "Closing Time" one better in the split-video genre, so as much as I like the latter I'd agree with your choice here.

For U2, I'd put "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" well below "Walk On" (US/Liz Friedlander version), "One" (Anton Corbijn version), or "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" (US/Joseph Kahn version). I'm with you on the three R.E.M. choices, though.

I'd move "Remind Me" up at least a few spots on my own list, but I'm a sucker for good information presentation. :-)

The list also needs at least one "Weird Al" Yankovic (most likely "White and Nerdy").

[slipjig]

Thank you for the magnificent reply! To address your points:

* I do have a rather serious Gondry fetish, which I'm prepared to defend. (In one of my write-ups, I even noticed the 10% thing). I'm a sucker for the specific sort of conceptual reality-bending that he dishes out, and am floored by his execution thereof. That said, I could have probably trimmed a few, notably "Star Guitar," which I tend to waffle on.

* Technically, "Praise You" is a .5 for Jonze; it was a co-direct with Roman Coppola. Talk about your whimsy overloads.

* Mea culpa on Mulcahy, who totally deserves more space than he got (at the very least "Wild Boys," which is a killer clip; disagreed, though, on "Total Eclipse of the Heart," which always struck me as silly). I think the real issue is my bias against early 80's videos, which for all intents and purposes WERE Russell Mulcahy. A lot of people call that period the Golden Age of Music Video, but I would put it solidly in the 90's, after MTV started including director's credits in their info flashes and put Marty Callner and his hair-metal hack brethren out of business. The early 80's stuff doesn't hold up for me as well, with a lot of excess and not a lot to back it up, it seems to me; even so, I gave it very short shrift, which is unfair and shortsighted.

* Huh, kind of weird that I didn't look at more U2, so you have a point. One more I'd add, and the other one I'd shortlisted, was "Where the Streets Have No Name."

* Yeah, shoulda had Al, and yep, that one.

[felisdemens]

"Wild Boys" is a great video for a song that makes me cringe.

Ditto "Dear God". Eurgh.